Knee Tuck Jump
Also works: Abductors · Adductors · Calves · Glutes · Quadriceps
A maximal vertical jump in which you pull both knees up to your hands at the top. It needs no equipment at all, and the hands held at chest height give you an honest target: either the knees reach them or the jump was not high enough, which is rare in bodyweight jumping.
Own the movement
Set up first, then execute. Every cue below is something you can check on your next set.
Before the first rep
- Stand tall, feet hip-width, on a floor with some give — wood or rubber, not concrete.
- Hold your palms down and flat at chest height, fingertips touching, and keep them there for the whole set.
- Give yourself a couple of metres of clear ceiling and nothing to catch a foot on.
- Decide the rep count in advance, and cap it at five.
Every rep
Breathing & tempo — One breath per jump: inhale as you stand tall, exhale sharply as you leave the floor, breathe normally during the reset. Explosive up, no prescribed tempo down beyond soft, quiet and fully extended before contact.
Before you load it
- Land with your legs extended. Coming down still tucked leaves no room to absorb the impact and is the one way this movement genuinely hurts people.
- Avoid a hard surface. A maximal jump lands from higher than any box jump, and repeating that on concrete is what makes knees and shins ache.
Sets, reps & load
Where to start, and what to change when it stops being hard.
Bodyweight only; adding a vest to a maximal jump just makes the landing worse. Begin with 3 sets of 3 on a forgiving surface and let your body adapt over two or three weeks before going to 5 sets. Progress by getting the knees to your palms on every rep with quieter landings, and only then add a set — never by adding reps until the set becomes a burn.
What goes wrong
The errors that show up most often, and the cue that fixes each one.
Cue 'jump first, tuck second'. Pulling the knees early kills the leg drive — you rise less and only look like you jumped higher because your feet came up.
Cue 'legs long before the floor'. Practise five jumps with a deliberately small tuck to groove the timing of the re-extension before going for height again.
Land, stand up, take a breath, then jump again. Continuous tuck jumps turn a maximal jump into a fatigue drill, and the landings are the part that accumulates cost.
Move them to the front, before squats or lunges. A tuck jump on cooked legs delivers a maximal landing you cannot control and a jump you cannot measure.
Judge it by whether the knees still reach your hands. Stop on the first rep that misses — that miss is the signal the useful work has ended.
Why bother
Most bodyweight jumps have no way of telling you whether this rep was as good as the last. Holding your palms at a fixed height turns every rep into a pass or a fail, so the moment fatigue takes 5 cm off your jump you know immediately and can end the set.
The tuck also adds a demand nothing else in a plyometric session covers: the hip flexors have to fire hard while you are airborne, then release fast enough to get your legs extended before you land. That is a real coordination skill, and it is why the first sessions feel clumsy even for people who jump well.
Where it fits
Early in a session, straight after the warm-up, 3-5 sets of 3-5 jumps with 2 minutes between sets. It is the plyometric to reach for when you have no box, no hurdles and no space — but note that landing from a maximal jump on the floor is a harder landing than any box jump, so keep the volume lower than you would with a box.
If this one isn't it
No kit, too hard, or too easy — here's where to go instead.
Same job, different kit
When this gets easy
Asked and answered
Are tuck jumps better than box jumps?
They are cheaper, not better. A box jump lets you train a maximal take-off while landing from only a few centimetres, whereas a tuck jump makes you absorb the full descent. Use tuck jumps when you have no box; use a box when you have one, especially if you are heavy or your joints are grumpy.
How high should my knees come?
To your palms held at chest height, which is the standard the drill is built around. If you cannot reach them, do not lower your hands — lower your expectations and stop the set. Reaching by leaning back and folding at the waist does not count.
Can I do these every day?
No. One to two sessions a week is right, with at least 48 hours between them. The limiting factor is not muscle recovery but the accumulated landing impact on your knees, shins and Achilles, which builds up faster than the soreness suggests.
Why do my shins hurt after these?
Usually the surface and the volume. Landing from a maximal jump repeatedly on concrete or thin gym flooring is the classic cause. Move to a sprung or rubber floor, cut the set count in half for a fortnight, and make the landings quieter before adding volume back.